Cats, Cats, and More Cats…and a Dog…and a Dragon

I was sitting here last night, laughing at the antics of my insane pets, when I thought they might be a little light relief to blog about, at a time when all of us could do with a little light in our lives. The world outside my walls has gone crazy, and I will continue to fight in it, but just for a while, let’s draw into this safe space and allow ourselves a few moments to smile.

I have five pets (six if you count the boy, but I’m told I can’t, so five) – Three cats, a dog and a dragon. Yes, a dragon. Smaug. Let’s introduce him first.

Smaug is a beautiful, bearded dragon, with one eye. Yes, he’s a one eyed dragon. Long story short, when we went to get Efan his dragon he heard mention of one that had lost an eye because of abuse by a previous owner and immediately had to have him. Even though we went away to wait for the new delivery of adult dragons, we had to go back the very next day because Efan was absolutely set on this one, even before meeting him. He’d practically cried all night because he was so sad about the dragon no one wanted. HE wanted him, and so Smaug became a valued member of the family.

For some reason, I had thought lizards of all kinds to be quite boring. I mean, what do they do? Just sit there and blink and eat worms. Hmm. Well that is kind of all that Smaug does, but he does it with such flair. He also swims, climbs all over Efan, like’s to sit on his head, and absolutely recognizes the sound of his voice.

When we first had Smaug, in an attempt to be a good Dragon Mommy, I got the little angel some locusts. NEVER AGAIN! OMG those things are gross. The glare at you as if accusing you of being an evil murderer, which of course I was, then make obvious attempts at garnering mercy by fighting so goddam hard to live! I have a quiver even thinking about it. They lost major sympathy though when one escaped and creeped the hell out of me by how they can cling upside down to things. Half an hour of squeals and tantrums later I was more than happy to feed the bloody thing to the dragon, and it could look at me all it liked. Come to think of it I believe that look was a curse rather than a plea, a dare even.

As a complete aside, have you SEEN the Dragon Caterpillar? It’s one amazing little creature. The moths that come from them are awesome, too but these little fellas are just…

Next, shall we introduce Bella, the dog

Bella is a cross Whippet and Staffordshire Bull Terrier. She loves the world and is persistently joyful, in the face of many trials – more of which we shall come to later.

Bella is Efan’s dog, and she worships him, probably just a little more than he worships her. Never has a boy and his dog been so close and so dippy.

Let me just tell you one thing about Bella – she has VERY sharp claws. I don’t think Efan owns a single piece of clothing that doesn’t contains holes, and as for bedding…. The problem is that we can’t do anything about it. The vet can only cut her claws so far because she bleeds like a stuck pig if they get it a little wrong. I’m scared to death she’s going to jump up on a visitor and shred their best clothes. I suppose I should get a sign. “Beware of the Dog” I suppose I wouldn’t have to entirely define what visitors need beware of “Beware of the Dog – who will try to show you how much she absolutely adores you by leaping all over you tearing clothes and skin indiscriminately.” Doesn’t really run off the tongue and there’s not that much room on a sign.

Bella is a strange dog. She loves to dress up

Is part Demon

And thinks she’s a cat, and can sit on the back of the sofa behind your shoulder like the cats do

She also thinks she can sit on your lap, fit into a small box, many other things which are objectively insane. To be fair to Bella, she has to share her home with three small, furry demons, one of which is her arch nemesis.

Cue demonic music

This brings us nicely on to the subject of the cats. We have three. Between them they are – cute, soft, fluffy, adorable, manic, evil, demonic, bratty, spiteful, grubby, “special”, persistent, loving, mean, crazy, disgusting and absolutely own the house.

I suppose we should start with out first, first so to speak.

Merlin is now around 13 years old and the only cat we had from birth (practically) She is – how shall I put it – a special snowflake. We were forced to take her at four or five weeks, a couple of weeks sooner than I wanted. She and her sister both fit in one of my hands, they were so small. Strangely, her sister, Gandalf (yes, we thought they were both boys at the beginning) was the runt of the litter and much smaller than Merlin, but she was a right little fighter and so much brighter. She once brought in a rat that was bigger than she was. I wasn’t appreciative of the dead rat in the middle of the floor but was very proud of the cat.

Merlin, on the other hand is…special. She is unable to retract her claws so rather than a padding, stealthy huntress she’s more of a clacking princess tottering around on her high heels and batting her eyelashes. She’s such a pretty little thing but she dribbles like crazy so it’s impossible to snuggle properly without drowning.

Merlin is definitely the clumsiest of our cats. She can’t quite judge distance so it takes her a couple of tries to get up on things, and then often ends in a scrabble, and faceplants on a depressingly regular basis. We’ve had to put a ladder outside our bathroom so she can get in and out of the window like the other cats.

Our special little Merlin likes boxes. Any box will do, no matter how big or small. As soon as the box goes down, Merlin sniffs around. This happened almost as we were taking out the contents.

Last night, the incident which prompted this blog post occurred. We had a big box in our living room. It was a very big box, so big Efan could fit into it. Merlin had been eyeing the box for a while, walking around, sniffing, and finally climbing onto the back of the chair to have a look inside. There was some wrapping paper and a few pieces of card, nothing much. Two of the flaps were down – one on the back and one on the side.

After watching for a while, Merlin must have made up her mind it was safe, and jumped. She clearly intended to land on the flap, which admittedly looked fairly solid, so she could get a better look inside. The problem was that the flap wasn’t solid and it gave way under her tipping her into the box with a flurry, some strange mewling sounds and a thump.

Bad furbaby mummy that I am, I almost wet myself laughing before checking she was okay. In the meantime she starts scrabbling and growling, and the next thing I know she has the box on its side and rolls out like a Tribble. I had SUCH a glare before she stalked off.

Charlie, our middle cat is special in a completely different way. If he were human he’d be James Bond. Talk about suave. He doesn’t walk, he sashays and he knows exactly what to do to get good attention. He’s long, fluffy and sleek with amazing eyes and the kind of personality that would see him tear a bird to shreds in one moment, then allow himself to be dressed as a baby and pushed around in a pram the next.

Sure, while you’re doing that he’d be looking at you in a way that makes it clear he’s plotting out exactly what he’s going to do to you when cats take over the world

Charlie came to us as a fully grown cat. He was originally Efan’s father’s cat, but came to us when Ian moved to a flat where cats weren’t allowed. Charlie had originally gone to Ian from a friend because Charlie was being bullied by the other cats there – twin Siamese; evil incarnate. This makes it even more surprising that Charlie has gone through periods, on and off, when he had bullied Merlin horribly. At the moment, he’s being relentless, to the point of claiming all boxes and even pouncing on her to get her off cushions so he can take her place.

He’s always been a bit of a shit at mealtimes. Once he’s finished he’ll go for anyone else’s, even the dog if they haven’t finished before him. Nowadays, he moves from bowl to bowl pushing the others away if he’s not being watched. Delusions of grandeur much?

The final cat, and final animal is Dora

She likes boxes too

Dora is absolutely adorable, and absolutely evil. I have never heard such sounds coming from a cat before. She literally yells at the other cats, and the dog. Charlie ignores her, Merlin avoids her and Bella is downright terrified of her.

It’s funny to see the different ways the animals react to her aggressiveness. Merlin tries to ignore her as best she can, but she is skittish and avoids her whenever possible. If they have to cross paths, Merlin will stand her ground to a point but when testing the ground results in racking up the racket Merlin backs off and looks for another way.

Charlie, on the other hand, goes straight on through regardless. I’ve seen him literally jump over Dora’s head when she blocked a doorway.

Who would have thought such an adorable little thing could be so mean!

The worst affected is poor Bella. For all that she could probably eat Dora in two bites, Bella is terrified of her and won’t come into the room if Dora is having a hissy fit. She gives Dora a wide berth and whines quietly to herself when Dora is “going off” on one of the other cats.

There are, however, rare times when they get along, and they are real Awwww moments

Although Bella is still keeping a very wary eye on the little ball off fluff who might go off like a firework at any moment.